Page 155 of Just One Little Bargain

“That isn’t your call to make for them.”

“It isn’t yours either.” His voice stays maddeningly gentle. “You don’t get to decide that loving you is an inconvenience.”

“I’m not asking anyone to love me.” I press my fingernails into my skin.

“That doesn’t stop them.”

Somewhere in the argument, I lose track of what I’m defending. I’m just tired of all of it.

Milo reaches for me, then hesitates. “Come here.”

I shake my head. Then the solution I’ve been trying not to think about all day comes back to me.

“In a few days you’re gone, so let’s just solve it.”

“Solve what?”

“All of it.” I plant myself in front of him. “You’re a demon who makes deals. You need a completed bargain or Hell punishes you again. Make one with me. You get your contract, and go back with something to show for it instead of getting dragged into that furnace, and I get an inn that doesn’t fall apart around me. Everybody wins.”

“No.”

“Why not?” My voice splinters. “You said you wanted to help me.”

“We’re not having this conversation.”

“Yes, we are.”

“You’re panicking and not thinking clearly. I’m not taking your soul.”

“Maybe eternal damnation is worth it if it means I get to stop struggling now.”

Horror crosses his face. “You don’t mean that.”

“It’s the cleanest thing in the world. You keep telling me not to sign with Krell. Fine. If it has to be someone, let it be you. At least with you, I’d know it mattered. That’s better, Milo, so why won’t you just—”

“Because I’d feel it.” The answer is out before he can stop it.

“What?”

“I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Feel what, Milo?”

“You.” It comes out cracked. “Your soul isn’t . . . it isn’t an abstraction to me. It’s not supposed to be like that. But you . . .” He looks straight at me. “You’re my soulmate.”

“What?”

“I feel you all the time, like a second pulse.” His voice roughens. “I’d know the instant it left you. And when they put it into the furnace, I’d still know where it was. The bond doesn’t break when you die. It doesn’t let go. Ever. I’d spend eternity bound to whatever remained of you, knowing I was the reason you were there.” His hands curl into fists at his sides. “You’re asking me to condemn the one person who has made me want more than the life I was given, then carry what I did forever. So no. I won’t do that to you.”

“Soulmate isn’t . . . you can’t just say stuff like that to me now.”

But the word slips past my defenses and reaches the old, foolish part of me that still knows how to hope.

Soulmate.

As if fate could look at all of me and decide I was worth choosing. That I was exactly the person someone had been made to find. I hate how badly I want it to be real. But my thoughts are a machine that never powers down, and right now it’s about to tear this apart before I’ve even accepted it.

“I wish it had happened differently.” His voice drops. “Because I do want to stay, Evie. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.” He swallows. “And watching you stand here and offer away your soul because you think you can’t manage without a bargain . . . I don’t know how to make you understand what that does to me.”